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“Polnareff! Iggy! Look out!”
Muhammad Avdol barely has time to shout a warning and push his two friends out of the enemy’s reach with one blow before the stand that had appeared out of nowhere comes crashing down on him. How did it escape both his flaming life detector and Iggy’s sharp nose? The massive Egyptian has no time to wonder before the enemy strikes.
He suddenly finds himself immersed in a white, almost blinding light. He struggles to keep his eyes open. He tries to lift his eyelids and look around, but... there’s nothing to look at. He is immersed in a completely empty white space that stretches infinitely in all directions. He looks up: nothing. And down: neither. An immense white void. There is no sky, no ground. It’s as if he’s floating in the air. Yet his feet seem to rest on something, but whatever that support is, it is absolutely invisible.
Only then, as he looks around, his heart still racing, does Avdol realize that he no longer has his arms. They have been neatly sheared off at the elbows, a clean and precise cut. Obviously the work of the same stand that brought him here. Strangely, he feels no pain. Am I dead?, he wonders. Is this the afterlife? If so, it’s certainly different from what the scriptures had described.
His thoughts turn to his friends, Polnareff and Iggy, who have remained in the living world to fight the new enemy. While he inwardly prays that they won’t join him in this place, Avdol slowly feels his eyes adjust to the environment around him. It remains white, luminous, stretching endlessly in all directions... but not completely empty. In fact, he sees some dark shapes in the distance. Piles of objects, maybe a hut, and... yes, a person moving towards him, waving his hand.
Avdol decides to cautiously approach the mysterious individual, ready to react if he is an enemy, but is suddenly startled by a strange noise behind him, an abrupt WHOOSH. He turns to see, to his horror, a glowing crack forming in the air a few feet away. The hole closes instantly, but not before spewing out, or rather making them appear out of nowhere... his own arms, two stumps severed with a clean cut.
The astonishment is so great that Avdol remains motionless. Meanwhile, the mysterious individual has reached him. He is a man of medium height, with Asian features and a thick head of hair. His appearance is decidedly peculiar, as is his clothing: it almost looks like a yellow pajama covered in pink and blue circles. The man stops a few feet from him and greets him with a friendly smile.
“Hello,” he says. Avdol watches him in silence, suspicious and ready to defend himself in case he is another henchman of Dio. The man doesn’t seem surprised by his presence, nor by the two arm stumps lying next to him, and continues: “Don’t worry about your arms, my friend. If you want, I’ll take care of reattaching them.” And then, as if to sweep away his suspicions, he adds: “And don’t be afraid, I’m not your enemy.”
“Where are we?” Avdol asks sharply. “Who are you?”
“We’re in another dimension,” the man replies. “Specifically, the empty dimension where that criminal, Vanilla Ice, sends everything he disintegrates. I don’t think he’s aware of this place, though. From his point of view, the things he destroys with his power just disappear into the void. Instead, they end up here, like me and now you. Not so great, huh?”
Avdol doesn’t respond, but looks at the man closely. He doesn’t really look like an enemy, judging by his body language. “Who are you?” he asks again.
“My name is Matsumoto,” he replies. “I’m... or rather, I was, a Japanese tourist visiting Cairo. I studied architecture and was looking for palaces and buildings with a typical Mediterranean design... I made the mistake of getting too close to the gate of a villa that seemed particularly interesting, and I was attacked by the same man who attacked you.”
“How do you know his name? …Vanilla Ice, you said?” Avdol asks him. “And how do you know how his power works? Are you a stand user too?”
“Me?” Matsumoto laughs. “No, no, nothing like that. These things were explained to me by the other person who is stuck here with us. You will meet him soon, he’s a German scientist. But he should not be trusted... I call him Doctor Einmug to annoy him. I don’t know his real name, but in a way, if we’re here, it’s because of him. He was the one who gave Vanilla Ice his power.”
“He gave him his power? What do you mean? Isn’t that the power of a stand?”
“Yes,” Matsumoto replies. “Vanilla Ice’s power comes from a stand, or at least that is how I understand it. That’s what Einmug calls it. You know, I can’t see them, or even grasp the concept very well. But the doctor told me that he helped Vanilla Ice develop a stand by shooting him with a magical arrow on behalf of his boss, Dio.”
“Dio!” Avdol shudders. “So this Einmug is a minion of Dio?”
“It seems so,” Matsumoto says.
“But how could one possibly become a stand user... when struck by an arrow? I thought stands could only be developed by individuals predisposed to them, or related to other users...”. Avdol pauses for a moment to think. “So does Dio have an artifact that can create stands at will? If that were the case, it would explain how he managed to gather such a large number of stand wielders at his service in such a short time... “
“I’m not sure how it works,” Matsumoto tells him. “But perhaps Doctor Einmug will explain it to you if you can convince him. But be careful, he’s a dangerous man. As I told you, he’s not to be trusted. That is why I stay away from him. He’s settled down over there,” and points with his arm in a direction that Avdol can’t distinguish from any other, as it’s lost in a completely white landscape. “If you look closely, you can see a house. He built it with some of the materials that occasionally appear in this place. The craziest things come here. Vanilla Ice has a habit of disintegrating everything, even parts of walls or floors. Apparently he doesn’t feel like using doors like a normal person. But at least this way we don’t lack for material to build a shelter. Not that we really need it, since there is no bad weather, nor changes in climate or temperature... I guess having a house helps us to fool ourselves that we can continue to live normally.”
Avdol remains silent, overwhelmed by astonishment.
“Watch out, here comes more stuff!” Matsumoto tells him. And indeed, a short distance away, another glowing hole opens, accompanied by a loud WHOOSH, and spews out what appears to be debris... circular sections of floor and wall, even some pieces of furniture, and then, after a few seconds, chunks of a marble staircase.
“It looks like Vanilla Ice is fighting someone,” says Matsumoto. “And he’s not taking it lightly: he’s almost demolishing a palace!”
“He’s fighting my friends!” Avdol says. “Polnareff and Iggy... and maybe Mr. Joestar, Jotaro and Kakyoin as well.”
“Then we will definitely get more visitors soon,” Matsumoto comments. “Nobody can win against him. I wish them at least to arrive in one piece...”.
“Don’t be so sure of their defeat. They’re hard to kill,” Avdol counters. Then, looking at his own arms still on the ground, he turns to the man: “You said earlier that you could reattach my arms. What did you mean by that?”
“Ah, yes!” Matsumoto says, picking up the two stumps from the ground and approaching Avdol. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt. You know, this dimension has its benefits. Stand still and you will see!”
Avdol, unsure, remains motionless. Matsumoto brings the two arms close to his body, making sure the cuts match perfectly. And as if by magic, the two arms immediately reattach themselves. Avdol tries to move them by rolling his shoulders. The muscles work and he feels no pain, as if they had never been cut off.
“See?” Matsumoto says, laughing. “In this place, wounds heal instantly. And that’s not all! You never get sick, you never get old, you don’t even need to eat or drink. It is like a limbo where time does not pass for biological organisms. In a sense, you could say that time does not exist here.”
“Amazing...” comments Avdol.
Suddenly there is another WHOOSH.
“Here comes something else,” Matsumoto says.
More material emerges from the usual glowing crack that appears in the air: including, visibly, the tip of a shoe, which Avdol recognizes with horror as belonging to Polnareff, complete with some of his toes still inside.
“An unfortunate side effect is that even garbage never decomposes completely. Sometimes half-biodegraded waste arrives here and stays in that state. The smell doesn’t go away, it’s not very pleasant. Even these pieces of meat will stay here forever. It’s a bit disgusting... That’s why every now and then I collect all this rubbish in a little pile over there,” and he points again in one direction, where Avdol sees a dark dot in the distance. “That’s my garbage dump.”
The crusader remains silent for a moment. Then he exclaims: “How do we get back to the other side? I have to help my friends. I must keep fighting!”
“Sorry, you can’t!” Matsumoto tells him. “We’re doomed to stay here forever. The cracks that Vanilla Ice opens will not last long, and they cannot be crossed in the other direction anyway. You will have to resign yourself to living here, just like me and Einmug. You’ll get used to it, it’s not that bad.”
“Don’t even talk about it!” shouts Avdol. “There must be a way!”
“There isn’t, I tell you.”
“This Doctor Einmug you told me about... where is he? Did you say he’s a scientist and was Dio’s subordinate? He probably knows a lot more about stands and Vanilla Ice than the two of us put together. Maybe he knows a way back...”
“If he did, he would have left long ago,” Matsumoto says. “Anyway, you can find him in his house, over there. But be careful. As I told you, he’s not to be trusted. He’s evil. And he certainly won’t help you, even if he could.”
WHOOSH. Another crack, this time spewing what appears to be... sand? Iggy, Avdol thinks. He’s fighting too.
“Take me to Einmug. I need to talk to him,” he says. “There’s no time to lose, my friends need me!”
Matsumoto snorts. Then he replies, “All right, I’ll take you to him. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” And leading the way, he starts walking.
Avdol follows him, moving uncertainly in the infinite white and empty space. He can’t even tell if he’s walking in a straight line, given the complete lack of dimensional or geometric reference points. As they move, the crusader feels more and more cracks opening up behind him, with round pieces of wall and floor constantly pouring out. Then, step by step, Einmug’s house begins to appear larger, until, after ten minutes of walking, they are close enough to get a good look at it.
“It’s bigger than I thought,” says Avdol. “It’s a real mansion! Complete with a fence and a garage!”
“Yes, Doctor Einmug has been here a lot longer than you and I,” Matsumoto says. “And he loves comfort.”
The two get even closer. At some point, a deep voice is heard. “Who goes there?” it calls.
Avdol notices that an older man has come out of the house. He’s short, with a thick white beard, close-cropped hair, and pince-nez glasses on his round nose. In his hand he holds a rifle, also old-fashioned looking, pointed at them. “Go away, I don’t like visitors. I don’t want to see anyone! Especially you, Matsumoto!”
“Calm down, Doctor,” he replied. “We have a new guest. I brought him here so that you could meet him!”
“If he’s a friend of yours, I have no interest in meeting him! Go away!” shouts the doctor, still pointing his rifle at them.
On impulse, Avdol pulls out his stand, Magician’s Red, ready to use its firepower to instantly melt the bullets in mid-air should the scientist fire. But the man doesn’t pull the trigger. Is it wise to melt the rifle directly? Thinking better of it, Avdol decides against it and withdraws his stand. If Einmug were really a stand user himself, a battle would ensue and he would be forced to kill him. And Avdol can’t afford to do that if he wants to have any hope of escaping this dimension.
“Doctor Einmug,” Avdol shouts at him, keeping his distance. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to know if there is a way out of this place!”
“How many times do I have to tell you? There isn’t!” retorts Einmug. “Go away or I’ll shoot!”
After a few seconds of silence, a pensive Avdol turns and says to Matsumoto: “Let’s go”. Then he starts walking away from the house.
“I don’t ask for anything better,” replies his companion, following him. “But aren’t you going to insist? Didn’t you say you were in a hurry?”
“He doesn’t seem to want to help us,” Avdol answers, continuing to walk. “And in any case, it has been several minutes now that no more cracks have opened and nothing is coming. That means the battle is probably over. I don’t know who won, but the fact that my friends didn’t come here, not even their corpses, gives me hope that they did. That’s enough for me for now.”
“Well, in that case, allow me to host you. My home is in that direction. It’s not a nice villa like the doctor’s, but if you want to rest, I have a bed at your disposal”.
“Yes, take me there.”
After another ten minutes of walking in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a white landscape only interrupted by a few piles of rubble here and there, they arrive at some kind of hut. “Come in, I’ll show you the guest room,” says Matsumoto.
“Thanks,” Avdol replies, “I have to admit I’m pretty tired. A nap will do me good. We will try again tomorrow with Einmug.”
“Tomorrow is a word that has little meaning here,” laughs Matsumoto. “Although time is always ticking in the real world, there is no sun that rises or sets here, and there is no way to tell day from night. But Vanilla Ice once sent here a pendulum clock so I can estimate what time it is on the other side. There it is, still synchronized to Cairo time,” he says, pointing to a clock on the wall.
“It’s almost sunset,” Avdol comments, his face tightening. “I hope my friends have already confronted and killed Dio, otherwise the night will work in his favor.”
Matsumoto doesn’t answer, but shows Avdol to a side room. “You can sleep here,” he tells him. “See you tomorrow.”
“Thanks, friend. Good night,” replies Avdol. The two say goodbye.
Several hours pass. Avdol lies on the bed, lost in a deep sleep. The door to the room opens slowly, letting in a thread of the white light that dominates outside the hut.
A figure, indistinct in the shadows, approaches the bed where the Egyptian is resting. The figure slowly extends an arm forward. Then, with a sudden movement, it lowers it to the sleeping man’s neck.
But Avdol spins around and pulls out his stand to parry the incoming blow. “Not so fast, Matsumoto!” he shouts. “I was waiting for the moment when you would attack.”
“Weren’t you asleep?” says Matsumoto, astonished, stepping out from behind his stand. Avdol looks at him with a grin on his face as he generates a lantern of flames to illuminate the hut, taking the opportunity to get a good look at the enemy’s stand. Its appearance is undoubtedly strange. It resembles a huge chubby male child with wings, a sort of completely naked Cupid, except for the face, which is covered with a mask similar to that of a Mexican luchador. “How did you know?” Matsumoto asks.
“I knew you were a stand user and that you were lying to me!” Avdol replies. “And so I assume that you are the Dio’s henchman here, and not Doctor Einmug. Am I right?”
“Yes,” says Matsumoto, taking a step back and moving his stand out of the range of Magician’s Red. “Have I given myself away in some manner?”
“Last night, when I pulled out my stand for a moment in front of the doctor’s house, he didn’t bat an eyelid. He didn’t jump, he didn’t show any surprise. That’s because he didn’t see it. He’s not a stand user. You, on the other hand, gasped. It was a very short reaction, but I noticed it very well. You saw my Magician’s Red and he didn’t. Your story doesn’t add up, my friend!”
“Indeed,” Matsumoto says as his stand quickly moves back to his side. “I serve Lord Dio. Even here, in this accursed dimension, I remain loyal to him. And you are an enemy of him, so you must die!”
“So everything you told me was a lie? Who is this doctor really?”
“He’s really a scientist, as I told you,” Matsumoto replies. “Someone sent to spy on Lord Dio on behalf of a secret American organization. The Speedwagon Foundation, they call it. We surprised and captured him, and Vanilla Ice wanted to test his newfound power over him. Unfortunately, I got caught in the process while holding the doctor’s arms. Vanilla Ice still hadn’t calibrated his stand, and he wiped me out as well. Doesn’t matter... The important thing for me is to continue to serve Lord Dio even in this dimension.”
“You’re crazy!” says Avdol. “Your devotion to Dio is misguided! He’s a demon.”
“Don’t you dare insult him!” Matsumoto shouts. “You’ll pay for it. You will have the honor of seeing my stand in action. I call it... Cloudbusting!”
Suddenly, a vortex rises around Avdol. The Egyptian realizes that the walls of the hut are dematerializing, and the particles that made them up are forming a cloud that surrounds him. He begins to run out of breath. “What... are you doing?” he says.
“Behold the secret power of my stand! It instantly vaporizes inanimate matter and turns it into a cloud of gas that surrounds and envelops the enemy. Your airways will soon be saturated. You will die of suffocation!”
“Ugh...” says Avdol. “C-Cloudbusting, you said? What kind of name is that?”
“You don’t like it?” laughs Matsumoto. “I chose it myself. It’s the title of a song by Kate Bush, my favorite artist!”
“W-what? I understand that all the major arcana of Tarot cards have already been used, but what kind of fool would be inspired by a song to name a stand? I hope this trend doesn’t catch on! And now... Magician’s Red! Cross Fire Hurricane!”
With that, he tries to counterattack, throwing flaming ankhs in the direction of the enemy. But to his great surprise, even the flames, like the walls of the hut, dematerialize into a thousand small fragments swirling around him.
“It’s no use,” laughs Matsumoto. “The power of Cloudbusting also affects your fire. Nothing can hit me! And now die! In a few moments, the cloud that surrounds you will completely take your breath away!”
Avdol can actually feel the air in his lungs running out. His stand retreats and disappears. He finds himself kneeling on the ground, helpless. Has my end come? he wonders. I don’t know how to counter this stand. Will I die here, in this bizarre dimension?
The cloud of fire and debris closes in around him. Avdol lifts his head and looks around. Beyond the spinning fragments, he sees that the walls of the room are now gone, reduced to a cloud of dust by the enemy stand. The pendulum clock that was in the next room is still intact, however, with the hands clearly visible.
It’s already dawn in Cairo, Avdol thinks. I wonder how Mr. Joestar and the others are doing... I wonder if they have defeated Dio...
And just at that moment, as if fate wanted to answer him and send him a message through interdimensional space, as the clock ticks forward one minute and the sun actually rises above the horizon in Cairo, Matsumoto lets out a sharp cry. “Ahhhh!” he exclaims, putting his hands to his head.
What’s going on?, Avdol wonders. At the same moment, he notices that the cloud surrounding him is dissipating. It doesn’t disappear, but it drifts away. The particles that made it up are moving apart from each other instead of concentrating around him.
“Lord Dio...” cries Matsumoto, writhing on the ground in excruciating pain. “Lord Dio has been defeated! He’s dead! And his cell... his flesh bud...”
To Avdol’s horror, now able to stand and finally breathe, he sees something moving on the enemy’s forehead. It’s the flesh bud Dio had implanted in his minion to make him loyal. The Egyptian understands immediately what is happening: Dio’s death has driven the bud mad.
Matsumoto’s face begins to distort. His body slowly deforms before Avdol’s eyes. The man turns into something monstrous, a kind of slimy and muddy blob.
And at the same time as Matsumoto’s physical transformation, his stand also seems to be going crazy. Cloudbusting begins to spin on itself, and at that moment, its user’s body begins to disintegrate. The stand is creating a cloud made up of the cells of its own user!
Within a few moments, Matsumoto’s entire body dissolves. The particles of the cloud become sparser and sparser, spiraling away from each other and spreading outward. Until nothing is left. Neither the user nor the stand. Avdol looks around in astonishment. Only a few fragments of walls and furniture remain of the hut. Matsumoto is gone forever.
Maybe it’s for the best, the Egyptian thinks. He probably would have lived forever in that state, as a shapeless and monstrous blob. His own stand spared him this tragic fate. As for me...
Shaking off the particles of matter and dust that remained on his clothes, Avdol gets to his feet and decides to walk in the direction of Einmug’s villa. I have to talk to this scientist, he thinks. Now that I know he’s connected to the Speedwagon Foundation, I can probably trust him. And after a moment’s pondering, another thought forms in his mind. Dio is dead! Mr. Joestar and the others did it! Thank the gods. Our goal has been achieved.
Avdol approaches the mansion. When there are only a few meters left, he stops and yells, “Doctor Einmug! Matsumoto is dead. And so is Dio. Come out, I’m not your enemy!”
After a few seconds, the scientist emerges from the door, still holding his rifle. “What did you say?” he asks suspiciously.
“Dio’s dead,” the Egyptian repeats. “Probably Vanilla Ice too. My friends did it. My name is Muhammad Avdol, and I was in Joseph Joestar’s group.”
Hearing this, Einmug hesitates. “Joestar, did you say?”
“That’s right,” Avdol reaffirms. “I know you are familiar with that name ... if it’s true that you worked for the Speedwagon Foundation.”
“It is indeed so,” replies Einmug. After another moment of hesitation, he lowers his rifle. “Perhaps you’re telling the truth. That scoundrel Matsumoto is dead too, did you say?”
“He was killed by the flesh bud Dio planted in his brain,” Avdol confirms. “Now we’re alone here, you and I.”
“And we will stay here. There is no happy ending for us,” Einmug says. Then he turns and walks back into his house, leaving the door open. “Come in,” he adds.
Avdol follows him into the house.
“What do you mean, Doctor?” he asks. “There really is no way back to the real world?”
“There wasn’t when Vanilla Ice was alive,” the scientist replies, “and there isn’t now. His stand was a one-way passage. And now that he’s dead, that passage no longer exists. The real world and the Delta Dimension are destined to remain separate forever!”
“The Delta Dimension?” Avdol asks, perplexed.
“Ice called it ‘a dimension of darkness’,” Einmug explains. “Very melodramatic. But as you can see, this void is far from being dark. That’s why I decided to give it a different name. And in all the time I’ve been trapped here, I’ve had a chance to study it. And I like it. Look at it: an infinite empty space... I can’t think of a better place to be a prisoner. Here I can study, sleep, walk as much as I want. Isn’t it a wonderful world?”
Avdol looks at him puzzled and doesn’t know how to argue.
“No atmospheric whims or annoying noises or squabbles over ‘living spaces’,” the scientist continues. “And there is no day or night. Time does not exist here!”
“Matsumoto told me that too,” says Avdol. “And yet we perceive its passing.”
“It is not a real perception,” Einmug says. “It’s just an illusion created by our brains adapting to this dimension. Otherwise we’d risk going mad. Actually, we could live here forever without getting old or bored. Anyway, we still have a way to count how much time is passing ‘on the other side’. I know Matsumoto had a pendulum, and I also have several clocks here whose hands keep moving. That way we can calculate the date and time in the real world. Not that it makes any real difference to us, as I said.”
“It’s fascinating,” Avdol comments.
“Well, apparently we’re meant to cohabitate,” Einmug adds. “My villa is big, I have some spare rooms. If you want, you can settle down here... Avdol.”
“There’s really no going back? You’re a scientist... don’t you have any ideas?”
“I’m a nuclear physicist, yes. But during my work with the Speedwagon Foundation, I also started to study stands. I don’t have one myself, but I’ve learned a number of things about them. And one of those things is that once the user is dead, there is no way to access their power again. Except in very rare cases, like stands that survive the death of their own user: but that is not the case with Vanilla Ice”.
Avdol feels his hopes fading. “So I’ll never see my friends again...”
“You’ll have to deal with that,” the scientist concludes. “As I told you, there is no unexpected happy ending to this story.”
The days pass. Then the months. And then the years. As Einmug had foretold, Avdol discovers that, unbelievably, the passage of time does not weigh on him. He never gets tired or bored. His mind is always clear and alert, as if it were the first day he arrived there. And his body shows no signs of aging. The Delta Dimension is a true limbo, where existence remains suspended.
Sometimes Avdol goes for long walks, in a precise direction, hundreds of miles away from Einmug’s villa and the area where the debris and rubble Vanilla Ice sent there in his last fight is located. During these long walks into the void, which last for whole days, Avdol never encounters anything. No objects, no buildings, no people. And eventually, he always comes back.
Einmug, for his part, is often alone in his laboratory. Sometimes he investigates the nature of the Delta Dimension, sometimes he builds strange machines to study - his words - the subatomic world. Avdol often wonders if the doctor is going crazy when he talks about “enlarging atoms to human size”, but either way, his experiments never lead to anything.
Almost out of habit, with no real hope that it will help, the two men continue to keep track of the time that is passing in the real world. Avdol arrived there on January 16, 1989, and Dio’s death occurred at dawn the next day. Almost without realizing it, nine years have passed and it’s the beginning of 1998. Avdol often pauses to think about his friends: Who knows what Mr. Joestar is doing now... and Jotaro, Kakyoin, Polnareff and Iggy... if they all survived the final battle.
Then, one day, after nine years of silence, something truly amazing happens. While Avdol is taking one of his long walks, dozens of miles away from Einmug’s villa, he suddenly hears a noise not far from him.
WHOOSH.
Avdol turns in the direction of the sound. And indeed, about a hundred feet from him, he sees a crack opening out from which a small object is emerging. He runs towards it. When he gets there, the portal is already closed. He picks up the object and looks at it. He can’t believe his eyes: it’s a bento, a plastic container full of sushi. The food is sprinkled with a large amount of wasabi, as if someone wanted to exaggerate the spiciness for fun.
Excited, Avdol turns around and runs back to Einmug, still holding the bento box. When he arrives at the villa, he doesn’t hesitate to call the scientist. “Doctor! Doctor! Come quickly!”
“Huh? What? What is it?” Einmug exclaims, coming out of his laboratory.
“Look at this!” says Avdol. “A new crack appeared. And this came out.”
“Sushi?” says the astonished scientist.
“That’s right. And fresh! With a disproportionate amount of wasabi, though. Probably inedible, as spicy as it is!”
“Fortunately, we don’t need food here,” Einmug comments. “But... how is this possible? How could it have broken through?”
“Maybe Vanilla Ice is still alive?”
“Improbable... We haven’t heard from him in nine years. And why would he use his stand to send some sushi here?”
Avdol cannot answer that.
“We have to reflect,” Einmug adds. “And analyze everything from the right perspective and with the scientific method.”
“What do you think, Doctor?”
“As absurd as it sounds, the most likely hypothesis is that a new stand has been born with the same powers as Vanilla Ice’s.”
“Another interdimensional stand?” asks Avdol, surprised.
“One that can access the Delta Dimension. Or otherwise send items here.”
“And why would it send us sushi?”
“I don’t know... The objects or debris that Vanilla Ice sent here indicated that he was fighting. However, this time...”
“Maybe this new user didn’t like it. After all, with all that wasabi, it must be super spicy. Maybe the wielder of this stand doesn’t like spicy food.”
“Could be. Anyway, he doesn’t seem to be involved in a fight.”
“What do we do then, Doctor?”
“Let’s wait, my friend. Let’s wait and see.”
They don’t have to wait long. Over the next few days, more passages open. Though several miles away, they are clearly visible across the vast emptiness, not to mention the WHOOSH that announces them. But the objects coming out of them are at least curious. Some old manga. A pierced soccer ball. Often leftover food.
“It doesn’t really look like the user is a warrior,” Avdol comments. “He looks like a very young person. Maybe a student. And Japanese, judging by the manga and the food.”
“There is one more thing we can tell from what is coming here,” Einmug adds. “His stand works differently than Vanilla Ice’s. The gaps are smaller, and the user has more control over what is being transferred into this dimension. Vanilla Ice’s stand was a sphere that disintegrated everything in its path, while in this case our guy seems to be able to focus more precisely on what he wants to make disappear from his world.”
“Can any of this help us? We don’t even know if this user is a friend or an enemy,” Avdol says.
“Dio is dead,” the scientist reminds him. “These two categories probably no longer apply. The user could simply be a student who uses his newfound stand to make trash or things he doesn’t like disappear. He may never use it in combat.”
More months pass. The number of items sent from the new stand to the Delta Dimension increases. Sometimes cracks open, but nothing comes through them except a gust of air.
In April 1999 the cracks intensify. One of the strangest things to come from the real world is a piece of a metal gate with a sign on it that bears the kanji 入 (meaning “enter”). A few seconds later, there follow some cracks from which only air escapes.
A few days later, another oddity: tufts of hair that appear to be... on fire.
The following month, a piece of a motorcycle tire, followed by the usual puff of air, and then some patches of dirt and a piece of underground electrical cable.
Avdol and Einmug examine all the items that arrive, trying to learn something about the mysterious stand and its user. But they come up with nothing useful.
Until, a few months later, another gate opens. Once again, nothing seems to come out of it... But it’s not just air, like the other times, but something more dangerous. Avdol, who was near the gate when it opened, immediately senses the threat. Suddenly he feels something touching him, like an invisible bubble. And immediately an explosion follows. Fortunately, the Egyptian has the quick reflexes to pull out his stand to protect himself somehow, but he can’t avoid being wounded in the side. Not too serious, he thinks, here my wound will soon heal. But it’s the first time this new stand user has sent us something offensive: maybe he really is an enemy after all?
Since then, the cracks become less frequent. Sometimes months go by without an opening, and nothing dangerous comes out anymore. Maybe the user wasn’t an enemy after all, Avdol thinks. Maybe he was in a fight of his own and diverted his opponent’s bullet here, not knowing that what his stand erases doesn’t vanish into nothingness, but ends here. We may never know the truth.
In the real world, time continues to advance. Dr. Einmug’s clocks show that it is now April 2001. Avdol and the scientist are back to their usual routine. Even the Egyptian has come to accept that he will remain in this limbo forever. But this belief is proven wrong the day the WHOOSH announcing the opening of a new passage is heard much louder and for longer than usual.
Avdol and Einmug rush out of the mansion and are confronted with an unexpected vision.
A portal has opened, yes, but it hasn’t closed. It is huge, more than six feet high, circular in shape. Through it, the real world is visible, a green meadow and a blue sky. And standing in front of the gate is a humanoid stand.
The stand is golden, with a pink plaque on its chest and a series of colored inserts on its arms, legs, and head. The tip of an arrow protrudes from its forehead. Its eyes stare intently at the two men standing before it. Avdol wonders if Einmug can see it too, but apparently the stand is so powerful that it has the ability to make itself visible even to non-users. The Egyptian considers summoning his own Magician’s Red, but something tells him they’re not facing an enemy.
Then, after a few moments, the stand speaks to them.
“Do not be afraid,” it says. “I am... Requiem.”
“Requiem?” Avdol asks cautiously.
“Gold Experience Requiem,” the stand specifies. Then, looking directly at Avdol: “I’m not your enemy. On the contrary. I’m here to help you.”
“What do you mean? How did you get here? And who is your user?” the Egyptian asks.
“Someone you don’t know, Muhammad Avdol,” the stand replies. “Or maybe you do, sort of. But let’s not talk about him. I have been sent here to return you and the scientist to the world you came from”.
“What? Do you have that ability?” Einmug asks.
“I can do anything. I have the ability to effectively undo the actions of any other stand, living or not. I can return their power to ‘zero’. Even the one that brought you to this empty dimension. Will you come with me?”
Avdol is silent for a moment, suspicious. Then he asks again: “Who is your user? Who sent you?”
“You don’t know him, as I said. But to answer your second question, you should know that your friends are waiting for you on the other side.”
“My friends?” Avdol asks.
“Joseph Joestar. Kujo Jotaro. Jean-Pierre Polnareff,” Gold Experience Requiem replies.
“Mr. Joestar!?” Avdol exclaims with joy and hope. “And Jotaro, you say, and Polnareff? Are they still alive?”
“They are. They asked my user to send me here to retrieve you.”
“How... how did they know that I was here? And that I’m still alive, for starters?”
Requiem pauses, almost seems to sigh. Then it explains: “In Japan, the Speedwagon Foundation has been conducting a series of studies and analyses on the stands of some of your... associates. In particular, it has been trying to better understand the workings of The Hand, a stand belonging to Nijimura Okuyasu, an ally of Kujo Jotaro. Although there was no certainty, the scientists determined the probable existence of what you call the Delta Dimension. At this point, Kujo Jotaro contacted his friend Jean-Pierre Polnareff, who these days works as a consigliori... an advisor at my user’s service. That’s why I came here, to undo the effects of the stand that sent you here and to bring you back”.
Avdol is speechless, as is Einmug. But after a moment, they nod to each other in understanding. The Egyptian turns himself back to Requiem. “We’re ready,” he tells to it.
“So be it. Give me your hand. Let’s get back to reality,” Gold Experience Requiem says.
Avdol and Einmug step forward. One on each side, they grasp the hands of the stand. And as they prepare to cross the portal that will take them back to their home world, they take one last look at the Delta Dimension. A look full of nostalgia and affection for a timeless and painless world they will never see again.
And if Einmug regrets for a moment having to leave what he called home, in Avdol every feeling is dominated by an immense happiness. He’s still alive. And he’s going to see his friends again.
Unexpected happy endings do exist, after all.